Optical fiber is used for a variety of telecommunications applications, such as broadband voice, video, and data transmission. The benefits of optical fiber use include extremely wide bandwidth and low-noise operation. With the increasing and varied use of optical fibers, efficient methods of interconnecting optical fibers are needed. To this end, fiber optic connectors have been developed that do not significantly attenuate or otherwise alter the transmitted optical signal. Such fiber optic connectors need to be relatively rugged and adapted for frequent connection and disconnection to accommodate changes in the optical fiber transmission path. Because of the skill required in making optical fiber connections and the variety of applications and environments in which they are used, fiber optic cables carrying one or more optical fibers are typically pre-connectorized with fiber optic connectors by the fiber optic cable manufacturer before the fiber optic cable is deployed in a telecommunications system. The combined connector and fiber optic cable constitute a cable assembly.
Fiber optic connectors are designed to interconnect single or multiple optical fibers. Assembly of connector housing parts can create the risk of damaging or pinching an optical fiber. In the case of multiple fibers, for one example, a duplex fiber optic cable carries two optical fibers for full duplex communications. One type of duplex fiber optic connector used with a duplex fiber optic cable is an LC fiber optic connector. The LC fiber optic connector comprises a connector housing constituted by two connector housing sections that snap together during connector assembly. Unfortunately, the snap-assembly of the connector housing presents a substantial risk of pinching one or more of the optical fibers, which can damage the optical fibers and cause connection problems.